


Day 3: Confidence / Regret

by GemmaRose



Series: Ratchet Week [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Dubious Science, Experimentation, For Science!, M/M, Selfcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:14:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: Ratchet could ask another medic to handle this, but... Wheeljack came to him specifically. And he can't bring himself to leave Wheeljack's safety in someone else's hands.
Relationships: Wheeljack/Wheeljack
Series: Ratchet Week [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758271
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	Day 3: Confidence / Regret

**Author's Note:**

> Over a week late but, in my defense, ive been doing 8 hours of manual labour a day and that leaves very little energy for writing.

Ratchet looked down at the crude map in his hand, then back up at the building in front of him. It certainly didn’t _look_ like the sort of place that could withstand regular explosions from careless experimentation, but the weather-worn sign over the door clearly read Triple Jack Shack, with the shadow of the word Double still lingering beneath the word Triple. Evidently they’d not all moved in at the same time. That would probably explain the size too, it looked far more suited to house one mech than three.

He knocked on the door firmly, checked his chronometer, and shook his helm. Why had he agreed to this, again? Right, because it was Wheeljack. Because Wheeljack had said he didn’t trust any other medic to be able to intervene if their latest experiment went awry, and if he was honest with himself Ratchet didn’t trust the scientist’s safety to anyone else either. Not that he could quite articulate _why_ ; he knew there were other skilled medics out there, some even were alternate versions of himself, but Wheeljack wasn’t just any patient. Something about Unicron corrupted old memories, files created in a mech’s home universe rarely survived the first two weeks here. Wheeljack was one of the few mechs he could remember knowing before, in his own universe.

The exact nature of the relationship he’d had with that Wheeljack was... uncertain. This place did things to a mech, and even he wasn’t immune. The past was only marginally relevant right now though, there was no evidence that any of these Wheeljacks were the one he had known, only that they all apparently knew or knew of him and agreed his expertise would be appreciated. The door swung open, startling him out of his thoughts, and he looked down to meet the optics of the smallest Wheeljack of the bunch.

“You’re here early.” he noted, stepping aside to let Ratchet in.

“The map was easier to follow than I thought it would be.” he admitted, looking around as he entered. The building was indeed small, a single room with a few couches made of scrap metal, a rough low table, and a back wall made of shelves filled with cubes of strangely coloured fuel and what he could only assume were exceedingly unique interface aids. “I expected more of a lab.”

“Oh, that’s downstairs.” Small Wheeljack said dismissively, crossing to the back of the room and grabbing the decorative pad-prop holding a set of datapads upright. “Keeps the rowdier customers from damaging anything actually _interesting_.” he twisted the pad-prop, and two of the shelves swung smoothly out away from them to reveal the underside of the sloped roof. A slope which was matched by the stairs leading down into Unicron’s crust. Small Wheeljack started down, and Ratchet followed, casting a critical optic over the walls. The Jack Shack was built on one of the rare patches of solid ground in the bog, but all around it the muck was knee deep at best.

“Ratchet, you’re here!” Familiar Wheeljack beamed as they reached the bottom of the stairs, entering a clean room which seemed to be a dining area, one wide doorway on the opposite wall leading to another set of downward stairs and four more doors scattered around the rest of the room’s perimeter.

“Against my better judgement, yes.” he muttered, optis landing on the three cubes of violently yellow energon which sat in front of three stools at a counter, silver-green particulates swirling as it effervesced. That must be the hyper-fuel he’d been called to help test out. It certainly didn’t _look_ safe to drink, but then again, looks meant very little on this planet.

“Great.” Masked Wheeljack clapped his hands, optics almost worryingly bright. “So, in theory, this mix will get us charged and _keep_ us charged longer than extant synthblends, and with far fewer side effects. In the event something goes wrong, Ratchet, your job is to make sure none of us bite it.”

“Repainting the sign again would be a _massive_ pain.” Small Wheeljack said conspiratorially. Ratchet bit back a laugh, and Wheeljack grinned at him before sidling up to the table and grabbing a cube. “Bottoms up!”

The other Wheeljacks echoed him, grabbing and downing their own cubes, and Ratchet fixed a live vitals scan on each of them, the data flows taking up a full half of his HUD. The fuel hit their systems quickly, charge ramping up and internal temperature skyrocketing before his optics. Cooling fans kicked on at least halfway to maximum, and he couldn’t help but glance down at the sound of three modesty panels unlatching nearly in synch.

Belatedly, Ratchet realized he should probably be recording this for future review, and set a program running to do just that. No filters, he would need to be able to cross-reference everything later in case someone had a strange reaction that didn’t record on his medical or visual scan. And if he happened to access it for non-medical reasons, well... that was nobody’s business but his own.

The Wheeljacks staggered together, optics bright, Masked Wheeljack’s biolights flickering rapidly as Small Wheeljack sunk deft fingers into his hip. Belatedly, Ratchet realized what he’d just signed up for. He had to watch, attentively, without joining in or allowing himself to become distracted by his own charge, already rising as the three Wheeljacks fell into each other.

If this fuel didn’t have any adverse effects, he just might have to ask to participate in the next trial.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to any not-logged-in readers, but due to an ex who refuses to leave me alone I have had to disable anon comments. Kudos are still open though, and if you want to scream (or would like me to write a fic for you) come check me out on Pillowfort! No account required to get my discord, and I'm always happy to chat. [[Link](https://www.pillowfort.social/GemmaRose)]


End file.
